The funny thing is that this principle applies at both the micro and macro levels
in government. At the micro level, individual civil servants tend to focus on job
security - making sure the tasks for which they are hired never seem to go away.
At the macro level, organizations (like TVA) work the political system to ensure
their continued existence long after the problem they were created to solve no
longer exists.

The terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001 gave the government an easy basis for problem
preservation. There can be no end to the "War on Terrorism" because their is no
defined enemy in the war. Whoever the government decides to vilify next is the
enemy. And problems can be escalated because 9/11 happened because of a policy
loophole that "should have been closed". So any problem can be approached from the
position of "we have to cover all eventualities because we can't let 9/11 happen
again." An endless war with infinite fronts. I sure wish I could get that kind of
job security.

There's nothing special about government here. Companies too. Whether one likes to think in terms of conspiracy theories or not, companies will work to preserve markets (and spend enormous amounts of lobbying dollars to do so if they can't do through advertising or other coercive but non-regulatory strategies), even if those markets are known to be suboptimal on a macro level. Combustion engines, expensive medical procedures over cheaper preventative care, chronic care pharmaceuticals over investments in cure, and on and on.